02-05-2025
Some NIOSH employees reinstated, permanence not guaranteed
CLARKSBURG, (WBOY) — A few NIOSH employees were back in their offices on Wednesday as administrative leave had been withdrawn for certain positions, though it may only be temporary.
Around a dozen people within NIOSH's division of Safety Research Firefighter Initiative were called back into their offices and all 58 people within the respiratory health division, which the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program is a part of, were also reinstated earlier this week.
NIOSH employees who received Reduction in Force (RIF) letters on May 1 or 2 were told to ignore those letters, though their termination dates were estimated for June 30.
12 News spoke with the retired coordinator of the Coal Workers Health Surveillance program about how advocates were speaking out in attempts to save NIOSH jobs.
Due to dozens of former employees and advocates speaking out over the layoffs, Senator Shelley Moore-Capito and the chief of staff for Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have spoken with advocates like Anita Wolfe to help better understand the importance of these programs.
'The cuts to NIOSH, they're in direct opposition to President Trump's executive orders that he signed, saying 'dig baby dig.' I'm not going to say we don't need more coal; we do need more coal, but the easy seams of coal to get to have all been mined out,' Wolfe said.
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Though there has been no official confirmation that the reinstated jobs will be permanent, Anita stated that there has been talk of the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program to be placed under Secretary Kennedy's Administration for Healthy America, or AHA.
Without a solid understanding of whether or not these NIOSH employees still have their jobs, many people have already started looking for employment elsewhere.
'If my program that I oversaw goes away, if the firefighters program goes away, if a lot of the other research that's being done…there's nobody to pick that up. And that's one thing that's so upsetting, which was in the RIF letters, they were told that this was to get rid of research that could be done elsewhere, and NIOSH just doesn't fall into that. I mean, there is no other agency or even private industry in the nation that does what we do, and what we do even reaches internationally,' Wolfe said.
She continued with 12 News on her beliefs behind the cuts.
'I'm not at all against government cuts in some programs, but I think they need to weigh the value of the program against the money, and I have said many, many times, you know, what is a life worth? And then, even better than that, what is an Appalachian life worth because we have so much more disease here in Appalachia than anywhere else in the nation,' Wolfe said.
Advocates like Anita still plan to push for permanent change by continuing conversations with government officials and various media outlets to help spread awareness on the importance of these programs.
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